When I was able to leave the hospital, I returned not to England, and not to Granhus, but to Aurelia’s Nest on the side of the cliff. It was almost finished, and the result was truly breathtaking. I wasn’t even nervous about going inside, even though I’d almost died falling off the edge of said cliff. Tom had gone slightly off-piste when it came to the decorating and had abandoned Derry’s plans, preferring instead to be guided by photographs of Aurelia’s grandparents’ house. The girls’ bedrooms were super cute, with an entire art studio in Gaia’s bedroom and a climbing wall in Coco’s, replete with safety net and padded floor.

‘I’ll show you the guest room,’ Tom said, opening up the bedroom that sat at the front of the house. I gave a gasp. A deep copper bathtub was partly sunk into the wooden floor in one corner of the room. A large brass bed with a deep mattress, fluffy pillows, and a red Sherpa blanket was placed in the middle of the room, facing a roaring fire and a large velvet sofa in duck-egg blue. Tom pressed on one of the walls – showing me the wood cladding, I thought – and a cupboard slid forward very gently, revealing the ‘wall’ to be a twenty-foot-long modular storage unit kitted out with a wardrobe, desk, bookcase, media centre, and even a kitchenette. At the front of the room was a huge seamless wall of glass offering views all the way to the city.

‘It’s your room,’ Tom said, shoving his hands in his pockets and shifting from foot to foot. ‘Oh, but please don’t feel you have to. I don’t mean for you to stay as our nanny … As our guest. For as long as you like.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s just an offer.’

I told him I would love to.

For many days I stayed in bed reading and occasionally writing while Tom rebuilt his relationship with his daughters, taking them to parks during the day and, when the weather grew warmer, for long walks through the hills. We never saw the Sad Lady, or Hjørund, again. Maren ordered us all not to mess with the trees or the river, just to be on the safe side.

I finished my novel. In the end, Alexa broke free from the people holding her hostage, and went on to invent a mobile phone app that created tunnels – kind of the opposite of 3D printers. I was pleased with it, but the plot had grown a bit far-fetched. Alexa was always me. I knew that. I printed it off, quietly put it in a drawer, and looked out at Coco and Gaia painting in the playroom. There were other ways to write stories, I thought. I was writing my own story. And I was playing a big role in theirs.